More Geek Movies

A word of warning. These are movies I find entertaining for their geeky content. Some may find them cheesy or just plain bad. I am sorry if these recommendations fall into those categories for you. Remember that these movies are off the beaten path for a reason. 

John Dies at the End - A psycho-active substance allows people to see other dimensional beings so they can fight an "infection" from across the rifts of time and space. Lots of cool geeky moments and parts played by "that guy" including Paul Giamatti. Not for kids due to lots of language and nudity.

Odd Thomas - Odd is his name. He can see and sense things which allow him to solve crimes. There is a large spiritual storm brewing and Odd is the only one who can figure it out.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec. Adele goes to Egypt to bring back the mummy of the surgeon of Ramses to cure her sister. Then the pterodactyl causes issues for her scientific ally and mentor.

Journey to the West - Two demon hunters try to solve murders and destroy and imprison demons in ancient China. The Monkey King turns out to be more than they bargained for.

Solomon Kane - Based on  Robert E. Howard's 2nd most famous character. Solomon roams the land looking for redemption while vanquishing demons.

Man of Tai Chi - The hero is the world's greatest martial artist until an underground fight promoter turns him into a killing machine. The movie steams along until the final battle with Neo...er Keanu Reeves. Yes, really.

Nerd Movies

So, you say you'd like to watch a movie but you are tired of the mainstream fare. Then this is the list for you. All of the movies on this list are currently on Netflix. None of them are mainstream.

Dragonfyre - The Gateways  between the 9 worlds need guardians. The guardian of a major gateway to Earth is known as a great wizard. He's really just armed to the teeth. Elves, Orcs and Dragons meet superior firepower in this low budget Sci Fi/Fantasy mash-up. This movie has its moments of cheesy but it was made on the cheap. I would love to create a movie like this where the actions of the hero were controlled by gamers rather than scripted by film writers. 

Dororo -  A father trades the body of his son for demonic alliances and power. A Frankenstein like doctor creates a new body for the boy and he grows up to hunt the demons his father made a deal with. Every time he kills a demon he wins back a piece of his body. Bizarre fights using both live action and CGI. 

Bunraku - A comic book style adventure where two very different heroes team up to stop the evil town boss. The evil hench-bosses are numbered for easy score-keeping. All in a world that seems to be made of paper mache. Striking visuals and a cast you won't believe. 

War of the Worlds: Goliath -  Animated movie that is the spiritual sequel to the book War of the Worlds. In 1914 the Martian invasion is a recent memory, Nicola Tesla has broken the code of Martian technology and the earth defense force (ARES) led by Teddy Roosevelt are ready for the rematch. The movie does not wait long for that to come. Loaded with action start to finish this movie is great fun. 

13 Assassins - A brutal lord must be assassinated. An older samurai is chosen to carry out the task and gathers a force of 11 loyal men and a crazy demi-god to carry out the task. The movie is great fun from start to finish. 

The Host - A creature spawns after chemicals are dumped into the local river. One family gets caught up in a battle with creature while authorities have no idea what they are dealing with. There are some great CGI scenes depicting the creature mixed with live action humans. Very well done. 

Chocolate - A young autistic girl name Zen has an awesome talent. If she observes a martial art she is its master. Zen and her cousin embark on a quest to collect the receipts of her sick mother's loan shark book. They show up and at the addresses in the book and demand money and of course the bosses always send a horde of flunkies to dissuade them. Zen is more than happy to show them what she has observed! 

Dungeon-pocolypse

Below is the entrance to the fortress of Menedon. It looks peaceful enough. I scratch built the facade from cardboard, card stock, clay and hot glue.The tiles are actual industrial grade floor tiles that I painted and added walls made from cardboard strips. The walls could be made taller but they do not impede play at all in their current form.

The five groups lead by  (left to right, below) Casey, Don, Greg, Terry and Phil (thanks guys!) are teleported to the fortress to find that there are creatures guarding the entrance. Fiendish TRex, bullettes and Trolls, oh my!

Fast forward a few rounds later and the groups have invaded the next tier of the dungeon (below). You can no longer find different groups, though Casey's group is still mostly together.

Just as the force thought they were done outside a "little" surprise pops up. Below part of Terry's force chips away at the purple worm. The hunter in the fore-ground of the picture was eventually consumed.

So, this is where we called it a night. There are about 1/3 of the way through the dungeon. Only one casualty on the player side so far and only a few of the higher level spells have been used. There are also many wounded characters some more than others. 

Here is the list of what has been killed so far:

2 Fiendish Trex

2 Troll Slashers

2 Bullette

1 Behir

3 Fiendish Girallon

1 Purple Worm

2 Goblin Underboss

Lareth the Beautiful

1 Drow Cleric of Lolth

2 Teifling Blademaster

2 Yuan-Ti Half-blood Sorcerer

Half Orc Executioner

King Obould Many Arrows

Warduke

Bugbear Champion of Erthnel

Trogledyte Barbarian

Dark Moon Monk

We will try to schedule the next installment soon. I think it will go faster from now on because everyone is more familiar with what is going on now with the modified DnD Miniatures rules and I generally have fewer enemies from now on (really, hardly any, like one per room). In any case, there will be more pictures to come. If you participated and have better pictures you can send them to me or post them in the comments.

Been building

I am building a dungeon. Not a real dungeon but a Dungeons and Dragons dungeon.

I wanted to build something huge so this dungeon is 64,000 square feet in scale; in real size it is 36 inches wide by 72 inches long. The base is made of industrial floor tile which I found at a local flooring store for 88 cents a tile. The tile is a composite material that is already gray like stone. My original idea was to attach the 2.5D walls (ala DMScotty) using hot glue but I soon discovered that the hot glue would not stick to the tile. So, good old white glue was employed.

I used a combination of dry brushing, sponge painting and inks to give the dungeon the "lived in" look. During the construction I learned new ways that might have made the whole thing look better but I am going to run the game I had planned for them. I will post some pictures after next weekend's game.

Dungeons and Dragons Basic

It's here. The Dungeons and Dragons free Basic rule set. If you ever have played you should go download and read it. I have put the link below.

A few major changes to report from the last edition taken from one lunch time's reading. Healing Surges are gone and normal Clerical healing is back. In fact, all spell casting is back. The major difference there is that many spells have been condensed. Cure Wounds replaces the entire Cure series in 3.X. If memorized as a 1st level it cures 1-8 plus level and if memorized as a 2nd level spell then its 2-18 plus level and so on.

Gone are the old school minuses for wearing armor. Now if a character is trying to perform stealth maneuvers while wearing plate he is at a Disadvantage. This means he rolls 2D20 and uses the least favorable.

Characters can also have an Advantage. It works in the opposite manner. You roll 2D20 and select the better roll. I want that for attack rolls.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/basicrules

Wizards of the Coast Starts the Sorry Tour

How exactly do you say your sorry for releasing a game system that was a huge risk? One that you justified by promising online play and easier access to new players. One that seemed to be making all o the character classes similar and forcing the use of miniatures or tokens. This is reality of the task Wizards of the Coast has with the release of the new Dungeons and Dragons edition (FKA 5th Edition)

WOTC is hoping that 5th Edition is the answer to that question. It is a little over a month away from the release date but this has been the edition where most of the surprises have already been revealed. The public play test of what is now to be called simply "Dungeons & Dragons" lasted well over a year. To get the play test materials all you had to do was ask. The answer to what is it like is simply that it is much closer to 3rd edition than 4th. It looks like they have removed all the MMOG power structure and returned D&D to its roots.

Now that Pathfinder has established itself as the main fantasy RPG how do you get players to even look at your new D&D rules? How about making them free? Yes, that's right the basic rules for D&D will be a free PDF download. Essentially WOTC wants to woo you back to the fold and a free copy of the rules as their gateway.

The other item that 4th edition was lacking in was third party support. The open licensing for 3.x editions and later Pathfinder ensured that many companies contributed material to the library of adventures and settings. The new edition is rumored to be working with third party designers right now to release non-official but authorized content for the new game. 

OK, so, root style play, free rules and third party support but that only gets us back to where we were before 4th edition. How about a spiffy new battle game based on the flight path mechanics of the Attack Wing games from WizKids? That's right Dungeons & Dragons: Attack Wing will be released within the year. It will add ground units to the Attack Wing system and dragons can move between the ground and the sky. It looks great and the dragon miniatures look like they'll be in 25 mm scale as will the other troops available.

Am I going back? I don't know for sure. I have leafed through the play test materials and pre-ordered the initial three books. I saw the Attack Wing game being played at Origins and I must say it looks very cool. But Pathfinder has become the new best friend when you old friend moved away. If he moves back you will always wonder if they'll move away again. The new D&D will have to go a ways to make up for its past misdeeds. As a game 4th edition was not bad, just not D&D. If they would have called Forgotten Realms Tactics or something like that they would have sold some new material while cultivating their existing audience. 

Here is the link where WOTC talks about free Basic D&D

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20140527

Origins 2014 Reactions

What can I say? I had a good time. I met some cool people including DM Scotty. The official line from GAMA is that attendance was up this year. I think there were more people there Thursday and Friday which were both dead days last year but Saturday did not really feel crowded to me. 

Please fix on-site registration. This had been a mess every year since the convention has been in Columbus. There was a picture, posted on Facebook, of the line to register on Saturday that one person claimed as proof of the success of the convention but I saw it as a failure in customer service. The line at the BMV in Ohio moves faster than the Origins line. Ohio is ranked #1 in customer experience but there is a lot more to issuing license plates or a driver's license than printing a badge to enter Origins. Other conventions have figured out how to take registration payments online after pre-registration so why can't Origins? At a Wizard World Con I was able to buy my tickets with my phone while in line and then move to the pre-registration pick up line.

Restore the vendor hall. The entire vendor hall seemed sparse this year. There were only one or two no-shows but the lack of independent miniature vendors and the large discount retailers made the hall feel empty. Moving some of the board game vendors to the board game hall was not a bad idea but I think many may have missed the memo. The companies I noticed the absence of were Chimera Hobby, Pulp Miniatures, Covert /Slugathon Gamers, Cardhaus and Looney Labs. I spent lots less in the vendor hall this year as compared to years past.

Help the GMs. Give them a count after registration closes for each event they are running. They should not have to ask for it. I waited with one poor GM Friday morning with a generic in hand hoping the at least two more players would show so that we could play his game. He like many of the others had no clue how many people had signed up for his game. Another great addition would be an online scheduling system that runs after pre-registration ends until the convention ends so that you don't have to wait in line to find out if  a game you want to play is sold out or worse show up for a game with a generic to find out it is sold out (or over booked!) These are problems that have been around a while and are relatively easy to fix.

Better Signs and/or Information. Where was Artemis? Geek Chic? Stronghold Games? WizKids?

I know GAMA/Origins has no control over the Greater Columbus Convention Center but it was not great that at least one of the snack areas was cash only. The Java City was able to take credit but not the snack vendor next to BattleTech. What gives? They had signs saying "cash only, sorry for the inconvenience" and thanks to a few cash only vendors <cough> Star Realms <cough> I was short on cash a couple of days and could not get my kettle corn and cotton candy fix.

Overall not a bad show. A little disappointing but I will hope that there are changes for the better next year.

Origins Show FAQ

What was the favorite game you played?

Fantasy Quest - Miniature Skirmish Rules

So, What did you buy?

Mice and Mystics with expansion set

Call of Catthulu RPG

Get Lucky (Kill Dr. Lucky card game)

2 Dystopia Rising Splat books

My son Nick bought Star Realms

What did you almost buy?

Myth by Merc Games

Dragon Head Trophy by David Lee Pancake

What did you want to buy but could not find?

WizKids Godzilla Figures

Formula E by Clever Mojo Games (Elephant Racing!)

What new product looks promising?

WizKids new Dragon Combat game licensed from Wizards of the Coast

What was the strangest vendor in the hall?

Vendor selling oysters each guaranteed to have a pearl